A Real Kick : While Some County Residents Pursue Rest and Relaxation, Intrepid Soccer Fans Defy the Heat at Annual Invitational

She could have gone to the beach, fired up the back-yard barbecue or filled a cooler with ice-cold beer. But Thousand Oaks mother Jheri Baer chose instead to spend the Sunday before Labor Day turning clumsy cartwheels.

Baer did one every time her 10-year-old daughter, Lauren, scored a goal for her team at a soccer tournament that drew 2,400 players--hot, humid skies and all--to athletic fields in Simi Valley, Moorpark and Thousand Oaks.

“I embarrass my daughter sometimes,” said Baer, recovering from her brief gymnastic venture under a portable umbrella at Conejo Creek Park in Thousand Oaks. “But that was our deal: She scores a point, I turn a cartwheel.”

The Baers were one of hundreds of families that took part in the Labor Day Invitational, a three-day soccer match that draws young players from as far away as Oregon, said Susan Salas, an organizer of the annual event.

It is a holiday match that has grown so popular in the past five years that organizers had to spread the 160 teams among fields at three parks and one school to accommodate them all, Salas said. The finals of the tournament will be played today.

In other parts of the county, residents and tourists chose to celebrate the waning days of summer in more traditional pursuits: They flipped burgers, headed to the beach, flew kites and sipped iced mocha drinks at bustling eateries.

Blue skies and temperatures reaching into the 70s on beaches to the upper 80s inland are expected to return today, said Tim McClung, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

“There’s a little tropical moisture in the clouds, but it’s very typical weather for late summer,” he said. “We’ll continue to see mostly sunny skies and very acceptable temperatures.”

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At Conejo Creek Park, coaches and parents tried to keep the sweaty soccer players cool by frequently spraying them with mist, and plying them with water and sport drinks during breaks.

Attending soccer matches has become a weekend tradition through the summer and fall, said Rick Kubiak, who helped coordinate the tournament.

“If you’re a soccer parent, you go to all these games,” Kubiak said. “I’ve been a coach for eight years, and I can’t tell you how many Thanksgivings I’ve missed.”

Caitlin Salas is one player who says she doesn’t miss the beach.

The 11-year-old’s team, No Fear, had just beaten their rivals from the San Fernando Valley and Caitlin, covered in sweat, was beaming beside her parents, Richard and Jackie Salas of Thousand Oaks.

“It’s more thrilling to get a tan while scoring goals than to get a tan laying on the beach,” said Caitlin, a seventh-grader at La Reina Junior High School in Thousand Oaks.

Across the county at the Ventura Harbor, Betty Matson, 62, sat with a friend and listened to Dixieland tunes performed by a group called Main Street Jaz. She said she came to the coast to escape temperatures that reached 102 at her home Saturday.

“We chose the harbor because we live in Ojai, and it’s hotter than hell out there,” she said.

Melissa Ungerman was also enjoying the band and the harbor’s cool breezes. The Santa Clarita woman held her 17-month-old daughter, Alexandra, in her arms as she bopped to the music.

“We’re here to celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday,” she said. “We’re just going to eat and maybe do the carousel and the paddle boats. It’s beautiful here.”

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Walter and Lucy Odemer of Van Nuys were also seeking relief from the heat as they headed for Surfer’s Knoll, a tiny beach tucked near the Ventura marina. They often come to Ventura’s beaches, they said, because they are less crowded than coastal retreats near Los Angeles.

And they get here the quickest way possible. They fly. In Walter’s four-seater Cessna.

“It’s faster,” Odemer said. “It takes 21 minutes from Van Nuys Airport to Oxnard Airport. And we don’t have to worry about traffic.”

Vince Nicolai preferred to keep far away from the busy harbor promenade and beaches. The 32-year-old boat restorer spent his afternoon on the docks, polishing the sides of his 50-foot trimaran, Trydana. He lives on the boat with his black-and-white pit bull, Max.

Sounding a lot like a crusty mariner, Nicolai said he has no use for the large crowds that come to the harbor on weekends and holidays.

“It’s like a ghost town during the week,” Nicolai said. “And on Sundays and holidays, it’s like L. A., a real rat race. So I just stay away.”

The county’s busy Sunday saw no fatal accidents. But motorists dealt with heavy afternoon traffic on the northbound Ventura Freeway as thousands of cars and trucks loaded down with camping equipment, ice chests, jet skis and other gear tried to get to their destinations.

While most people relaxed, police, sheriff’s deputies and county firefighters kept busy responding to minor accidents, drunk-driving arrests and other calls.

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California 126 was closed in both directions for more than three hours early Sunday when a tractor-trailer rig overturned just across the Los Angeles County line.

And in downtown Ventura, a Chestnut Street freeway on-ramp was closed for about an hour as police and firefighters cleared a single-car accident.

A young woman lost control of her car around 2:30 p.m. and spun 180 degrees before the vehicle landed on its side, Ventura Police Officer Phil Steinberger said, adding that the driver had minor injuries.

After 11 years on the force, Steinberger said he is used to working holidays.

“We just take it in stride,” he said. “What can you do?”